* Hedi Slimane of Yves Saint Laurent/Saint Laurent/Saint Laurent Paris. Writes a playground tantrum of an online post frothing with incontinent rage against The New York Times’ Cathy Horyn, accusing her, amongst other things, of being a schoolyard bully, thereby failing miserably to see the irony that, in implying ‘her sense of style is seriously challenged’, & that she is ‘an average writer and a bit provincial’, he is guilty of exactly the behaviour of which he accuses her. Eugh. Slimane has displayed the all too frequent childish and petulant behaviour of many indulged creatives, sadly many of whom are found in the fashion industry.
* Bit late in the day, but this is a SPECTACULARLY good piece on the SHOWstudio site by The Independent’s Harriet Walker on Bloggers, highlighting “the hyper-sexual, overtly feminine and unnecessarily skimpy’ nature of many style blogs.. ”…Where once the desire to create a profile on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, to build a blog that would catalogue one’s inner workings, was driven by some urge to communicate one’s sense of self …the discipline has been hoist by its own petard…And so there is the sexy pose, the nearly-nude pose, the logo pose, the completely gratuitous crotch shot, the elaborate mise-en-scene of a backdrop which just happens to codify, by way of décor and design, exactly how cool the rest of your life is.”
* I was rather upset to see Johnny Ball voted off Strictly Come Dancing (the UK inspiration for Dancing with the Stars) this evening. He wasn’t nearly as toe-curlingly bad as cricketer Michael Vaughn, and it’s lovely to see a TV presenter of my youth on the telly now NOT being shamed as a paedophile/serial abuser/predator upon underage teenagers (See Jimmy Saville and, I suspect, a whole raft of men about to be named) and doing something wholesome, fun and admirable. (And dancing 10-15hrs a week at 74yrs is pretty damn cool.)
* IKEA: Shame on the Swedish furniture peddlers for erasing women from its Saudi Arabian catalogues. I know they have now apologised, but how on earth could anyone in this supposedly progressive, women-friendly country have thought this was a) acceptable and b) would escape notice elsewhere?
* This is a really interesting piece in The Times on how Hollywood costume designers developed a character’s look, to tie in with the V&A’s upcoming exhibition. (Paywall/Times Subscibers)
* Elizabeth Holmes in my old home, The Wall Street Journal, on, ‘As VIPs Multiply, Styling the Front Row…’
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That story about IKEA is crazy. But what to expect, it is Saudi Arabia after all!!